image from pinterest.com
Ivar’s
“Sex in your seventies is still great, and it
certainly beats fish & chips”.--Paul Daniels
On Pier 54,.
at Seattle’s waterfront,
sit Ivar’s Fish Bar;
a local landmark & treasure.
I went there
for the first time
in the summer of 1951,
when I was seven.
Elliott Bay
batters at it’s back door.
The smell of kelp,
wet pier timber
and barnacles
dances in the salt air.
The crowd gathers
in front of the wide high counter,
manned by four manic employees.
The menu is printed huge
on the back wall.
You must yell out your order,
as one of them repeats it
and writes it down.
Then you fade back and linger,
waiting for your food.
The Alaskan cod and halibut
is always fresh and tasty.
The clam chowder
is the best I’ve ever had,
The fries are golden & perfect,
and the tarter sauce is beyond compare.
You dine
in an outdoor covered area,
that’s heated in the windy winter.
Large flocks of sea gulls hover,
begging for a handout.
You would throw a french fry,
or a bit of fish.
into the air,
and there was always
a gull there to catch it.
It was adjacent
to the Seattle main Ferry Docks,
and great Super Ferries,
came and went.
emptying their cars
and boarding others
beneath blasts from its horn.
A meal at Ivar’s
was always spectacle,
a major event.
Ivar, the owner,
was quite the character,
and he did all the TV commercials
for the restaurant, reminding me of Burl Ives.
Their motto is “Keep Clam”.
I even have a bobble-head doll of him.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at d'Verse Poet's Pub







